Prayer does help. Prayer from the heart. But meditation does not seem to work in despair, isn’t it? 🙂 Unfortunately. Meditation is the long term remedy. It prevents the mind from being stuck in a loop — well it should 😉

Yes, meditation is not a quick fix although I learned a new technique from Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship that does help in a fix. But meditation subtly changes you for the long run. I think I am beginning to finally see signs of that. I hope! 😉

Do you think it can help if the mind is forced to focus completely on something external? It sounds a bit clichéd but if there a real emergency people usually “forget” all their personal issues and simply work on a resolution. Or would these be just put on halt and come back to haunt us later?

Hi Elke, thank you, …
focus or exactly the opposite?
In the deep trenches of despair, occupying ourselves with what-we-always-would-like-to-do feels like a dread. However, if it’s not too deep, this works.
I have seen emergencies, and then two classes of people appear: those who do nothing at all and sit down defeated not even wanting to rescue their children and certainly not themselves, and the group you mention who do what has to be done regardless of their present mind.
And yes, the 2nd group is a better master of the internal scheduler, and most issues have to be confronted anyway. But the ultimate issue is that my identity, either formed by possessions, or achievements, a CV, a job, parenthood or whatever — does not really exist. It is the concept — a record, of my ‘self’ stored in my mental memory created by my mental engine.
And it is not easy to be confronted by this, neither to accept it always. It is not easy for my mental engine to be confronted by this and unacceptable for it: Mind doesn’t want to ‘be’ nothing 🙂
Once this lesson is learned, next understood, and finally realized and accepted, (and not forgotten (the more difficult part)) doing and being become who we are, moment to moment.
(I humbly think, LOL )

Living from the heart is what I believe is the remedy – rather than thinking, am I feeling good about how I am with the people in my life; at home, work and leisure – am I being caring, compassionate, considerate, loving, etc… and so making decisions about my time from the heart… The ego cannot outsmart love… signs of healthy mind include being accepting of what is and how others act, enjoying others even when giving to them isn’t seemingly an advantage and may even hurt a bit sometime, enthusiasm for myself and others and my actions; the elusiveness of the moment wasn’t for me always the best thing to focus on to find my now either. Certainly though, the ego-mind wouldn’t like to be in the present moment when instead it can dredge up the past and hurts or frustrations. Intolerance is big in the area of counting life as being lacking of the enjoyment or happiness that when the ego-mind dredges up a score I find none of the happiness that my ego tells me that I deserve.

yes, living from the heart without all that thinking around it. Yes, the ego-mind, the mental engine, never sees the present — always in past or future, in ifs or shoulds followed by the present perfect or the conditional future.

Great question. It seems almost like the premise of a horror movie, as if even our own mind cannot be trusted. We can be fooled into thinking time of reflection and renewal is “helping”, but in truth, “helping” is a flawed concept. The flipside of the horror movie interpretation is the view that we’re always okay, always present as our true mind, even when we know it not… 🙂

your comment almost sounds like an oracle. 🙂 using my mental mind, the cause of my suffering, to analyze that suffering, most often is not going to help. I have to step outside and get an clear perspective. A mindless perspective. What is a mindless perspective? Something I cannot put into words. And that is the most difficult thing, cause feeling sad makes me think about the sadness and its reasons, and there might be none except being fed through an endless loop in the mind. (a viscious circle)